07/16/16

“Hope and Change” Becomes “Death and Destruction”

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Hope

BLM PosterPresident Barack Obama laid the groundwork for the Black Lives Matter movement in his first term when he said that the Cambridge, Massachusetts police “acted stupidly” after an African-American professor was arrested in his own home. It turned out the white policeman was protecting the home from what he thought was a burglary. Although the policeman had an impeccable record and there was no evidence of racial bias, Obama found him guilty of racism and “stupidity.”

Obama was trained by his mentor, Communist Frank Marshall Davis, to consider white people guilty of racism. Davis told a young Barack that black people had “reason to hate.”

Frank_Marshall_DavisOn virtually every occasion involving a police confrontation with black people—except in Dallas when five police officers were shot and killed by a racist black—Obama has sided with the rioters and the mob against law enforcement.

Black Dallas Police Chief David Brown revealed on July 8, 2016 that the sniper who killed five officers and injured another seven “said he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” during the negotiations with police. He meant that the Black Lives Matter protest, which was being protected by police, had inspired him to take action.

“These murders are the predictable outcome of the ‘war on the police’ and the racial polarization that has been fostered in this country,” said former Republican Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.

Gilmore pointed the finger at America’s first black President. He said, “President Obama’s statement this past Thursday, before the Dallas attack, on police shootings also helped set the stage. The President’s statement condemning the Dallas attack is too late to undo his terrible earlier statement implying that the police are targeting African Americans—an infamous lie.”

He was referring to the fact that, days before the murders, Obama had lectured the nation about “racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system” and pushed for so-called criminal justice reform—legislation that could empty the prisons and put hardened criminals back on the streets.

When two killings of black men were caught on video and protests erupted throughout the country, Obama could have calmed the nation. Instead, he threw gasoline on the flames of discontent.

As a result, protests across the United States spread from coast-to-coast, not only in Minnesota and Louisiana but in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Ferguson, Atlanta, Jackson (Mississippi), Baltimore and finally, Dallas.

Obama’s Role in the Violence

Chicago Police Officer Martin Preib says that “…perhaps no president in the United States has politicized and then undermined the federal law enforcement agencies more than Barack Obama. It’s a truth many Americans are slowly realizing in the wake of the decision by the FBI not to indict Hillary Clinton for her illegal actions in the email scandal.”

“What is truly chilling,” he writes, “is how Obama has used federal law enforcement as an instrument of his intense anti-law enforcement ideology, an ideology utterly unique in the history of American presidents, revolutionary even.”

MartinPreibPreib said, “Obama’s knee-jerk response to blaming police in shootings around the country betray this willingness to vilify police, no matter how much evidence indicates the police acted legally and responsibly. It is a tactic by Obama that undermines local law enforcement and rallies public sentiment against the police…”

William Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said in an interview with Fox, “I think [the Obama’s administration] continued appeasements at the federal level with the Department of Justice, their appeasement of violent criminals, their refusal to condemn movements like Black Lives Matter, actively calling for the death of police officers, that type of thing, all the while blaming police for the problems in this country, has led directly to the climate that has made Dallas possible.”

Attorney General Loretta Lynch actually delivered a message to Black Lives Matters (BLM) activists, advising them to continue their protests: “Do not be discouraged by those who would use your lawful actions as a cover for their heinous violence.”

This wasn’t the first time that the Obama administration had encouraged anti-police protests. FBI Assistant Director and Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund President Ron Hosko noted that the Justice Department’s “ill-timed decision to launch a full investigation into the Ferguson Police Department at the height of racial tensions in that community” amounted to “throwing gasoline on a fire that was already burning.”

He added, “Many officers were disgusted by such a transparent political maneuver at a time when presidential and attorney general leadership could have calmed a truly chaotic situation.”

Nevertheless, we are seeing the pattern repeated, as the national political party conventions get ready to take place. It is as if the White House is screaming, “Burn Baby Burn.” It is their opportunity to paint Donald J. Trump and Republicans as racists.

The 2016 Democratic Party platform appears sympathetic to the agitators, saying, “…We will push for a societal transformation to make it clear that black lives matter and there is no place for racism in our country.”

Hillary ClintonIn addition, both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have sought support from the group in their respective campaigns for the Democratic nomination.

Earlier in the presidential campaign season, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley backpedaled after declaring during a Democratic forum that “all lives matter.” Actor Justin Timberlake actually apologized to BLM for saying, “we’re all the same.”

Blood on Their Hands

The officers in Dallas were attacked in plain sight of the sniper because they were guarding and escorting 800 BLM protesters. The killer saw this as an opportunity to murder.

David BrownThat the demonstrations would turn violent—or inspire cop-killing—was to be expected.

Black Lives Matter, whose activists met with White House official Valerie Jarrett, is an organization that salutes convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur as a role model. A member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a group that worked with the communist terrorist Weather Underground, Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, killed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster “execution style” by shooting him in the head as he lay wounded by gunfire, according to the State Troopers Association of New Jersey. She was convicted of murder and went to prison, but with the help of the Weather Underground, escaped to Cuba, where she is still being protected by the communist regime.

The BLM website features this quotation from Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

FBI photo file showing the different appearances of Assata Shakur.Shakur’s notion of “freedom” is to be found in Cuba, where there is no freedom and the dictatorship controls the movements and activities of its citizens. It is a regime that sponsored terrorism and cop-killing on American soil.

“Black Lives Matter, as far as I am concerned, is a radical hate group,” said El Paso County’s black Police Chief Greg Allen. “And for that purpose alone, I think the leadership of this country needs to look a little bit harder at that particular group. The consequences of what we saw in Dallas is due to their efforts.”

“Black Lives Matter, which I have renamed ‘Black Lies’ L-I-E-S Matter, it’s nothing more than an astroturf operation,” Milwaukee’s black Sheriff David A. Clarke told the American Journalism Center’s Alex Nitzberg. “It’s just the latest shallow disguised, confederation if you will, of community organizers and leftists that specialize in fostering disorganization and rebellion in ghettos and other struggling areas throughout the United States of America.”

David ClarkeIt may be astroturf, in the sense that it’s a political organization with shadowy big money backers, but the strings ultimately go right into the White House. After these activists met with Obama, there can be no doubt about that.

In his special AIM Report, “Reds Exploiting Blacks: The Roots of Black Lives Matter,” investigative reporter James Simpson examined the funding and backing of this organization. Back in January, Simpson predicted that the movement could “assist President Obama’s exploitation of racial divisions in society beyond his final term in office.”

It appears Obama couldn’t wait until he was out of office. Perhaps the Trump candidacy caused him to act sooner.

As Obama knows, the incitement of racial protest and unrest leading to the murders of police diverts the attention of the public and the news media from the real problem in black America—the breakdown of the African-American family. Obama’s own family was dysfunctional, as he was virtually deserted by his mother and turned over to his grandparents, who turned him over to his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.

At a time like this, Obama could have provided real leadership, convening a special summit to examine the crisis in black neighborhoods and among black families. Instead, he exploited racism for political purposes.

Into this void we see courageous individuals like black Puerto Rican Ismael Hernandez, founder and executive director of the Freedom & Virtue Institute, who says, “By portraying our present family problems as a legacy of slavery and perennial racism, we can relinquish responsibility for the crisis and place it in the hands of whites or in the hands of the state.”

Hernandez is a former member of the Puerto Rican Communist Party who converted to Christ and has written, Not Tragically Colored: Freedom, Personhood, and the Renewal of Black America.

He understands the Marxist agenda—to make blacks into wards of the state, subject to political manipulation and exploitation by Democratic Party politicians.

ismael hernandez 2016“I grew up hating the United States, hating capitalism, and blaming capitalism and America for the poverty we saw around us,” Hernandez said in an interview with Marvin Olasky of World magazine. “And I hated America for the bad marriage that my mom and my dad had, because my father was only interested in revolution.”

Obama grew up the same way, as a result of the influence of black racist Frank Marshall Davis. However, Obama, in his own biography and when he was running for office, didn’t even have the honesty and integrity to acknowledge the role that Davis had played in his own life. Davis was only “Frank” in his book, Dreams from My Father.Hence, Obama adopts the Marxist playbook of treating blacks as victims of white society. His knee-jerk reaction in police confrontations is to blame the police.

Dreams_from_my_fatherIn a story from October 2015, Obama defended the Black Lives Matter movement and claimed that the protests “are giving voice to a problem happening only in African-American communities.” He said, “We, as a society, particularly given our history, have to take this seriously,” thus blaming American history and slavery for current problems.

“I think everybody understands all lives matter,” Obama said. But he went on to defend the racist term, “Black Lives Matter,” saying, “I think the reason that the organizers used the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that’s happening in the African-American community that’s not happening in other communities.”

Obama added, “And that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”

Yet, in case after case, including the police killing in self-defense of black thug Michael Brown in Ferguson, the evidence (in that case from Obama’s own Department of Justice) vindicated the conduct of the police.

At a White House meeting with Black Lives Matter activists Brittany Packnett and DeRay Mckesson, Obama said they “are much better organizers” than he was at their age, and that he is “confident that they are going to take America to new heights.”

We saw those “new heights” in Dallas, where the sniper’s Facebook page showed him in a dashiki, holding a clenched fist in the air. Johnson’s cover photos are a black liberation flag and a black power fist.

Black Lives Matter marchThis was the inevitable result of the White House rolling out the red carpet to Black Lives Matter. The red turned out to be blood.

The black racist killer told police that he “was upset about the recent police shootings” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

The bloody trail from the massacre in Dallas leads to the White House.

Another participant in that White House meeting was the Reverend Al Sharpton, who participated in the Tawana Brawley hoax back in 1987, in which a black girl made false and damaging charges of rape against a group of white men. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay a financial fine in that case.

Obama consciously decided to treat him as an ally, despite Sharpton’s history of anti-white agitation.

All of this sends a message to black youth—go ahead and agitate and exploit racial differences. The President of the United States is with you, even if you “Blame Whitey” with no evidence.

Bill OReilly 2016A different message should be sent. When black churchgoers were massacred in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white racist, most blacks in the area, even families of the victims, reacted with a message of racial healing and forgiveness. It was a tender and touching moment that brought people of all races together. We have seen none of that from the White House.

Equally offensive, Hillary Clinton has pandered to the mob, begging forgiveness for her husband’s 1994 crime bill that put black “superpredators” in jail and more police on the streets.

As we noted in a column about one particular exhibit at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Sanders “seem to believe that highlighting black crime is now considered racist, and that white racism is actually the real problem in black communities that have been devastated by black criminals.”

The “Making Communities Safer” exhibit of the Clinton Presidential Library highlights the tough-on-crime policies of the Clinton administration, including the building of prisons. Those policies, now considered racist by the Democrats, did far more to keep black families and their neighborhoods safe than the anti-police and racist rhetoric now gushing out of the White House.

The War on Police can only claim more lives.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/9/16

A Manufactured Divide Ends In, ‘I Want to Kill White People’

By: Frank Salvato

Dallas

The racial divide in this country, as it exists today, is completely manufactured. It is manufactured by the political and activist class, and for reasons symbiotic to one another.

Politicians need to divide our nation so as to pit demographic against demographic; in order to create political party “battle lines.” This is how they create an “us against them” scenario. True Statesmen and public servants seek to better the nation in ways that are good for all of the population, not just a sympathetic demographic. That does not exist in our country today. True government of and for the people is dead.

Activists – mostly products of the victimhood and grievance class – need to divide to define special interest demographics, again to pit “us against them.” It is how they attain power and influence, as well as wealth for their “movements.” This is serious wealth. One need only look at the personal trappings of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton to understand this.

Are there bad cops? Yes. Are there good cops that make bad decisions? Yes. But these are anomalies, not the status quote as the fraudulent #BlackLiveMatter movement, race-baiters and the Obama Administration would have you believe.

As a former first-responder I can tell you that even in the most remote locations, each day a man or woman puts on a badge to go to work, they simply want to do their jobs and come home to their families and friends. There is no other agenda than that. It is a goal. And sometimes, as in Dallas, that goal goes unachieved.

The manufactured racial divide now instituted in our nation is starting to take lives; it is fomenting in acts of domestic terrorism. At this point, the militants taking the shots are Black militants. They are targeting law enforcement and the first-responder community. It is perverted.

The fear among the situationally aware is that other intellectually stunted or militantly activist people and/or organizations that are not Black will be moved to retaliate. Many who are of the mind that a “race war” was by design; conceived and facilitated by Progressives attempting to maintain power through the chaos of “national emergency” will assume vindication at this possibility.

But this fear can only become a reality if thinking Americans – which are the overwhelming majority of our people – abandon the color blind society that we created for ourselves through the pain and growth of the 1960s and 1970s. If we do not give into the divisiveness of fear, they cannot achieve their goal of dividing America for purposes of maintaining power and fundamental transformation.

In this specific case, the catalyst for the carnage was not that a Dallas Police Officer shot a Black man. It was not that access to a “gun” caused this crisis. It was that a group of Black men whose minds had been poisoned to a manufactured racial divide pulled the triggers – repeatedly – to assassinate five police officers; wounding many more.

It was the persons, not the weapons. It was the opportunistic politics, not the society.

It is up to We the People to work through this. The Obama Administration is not on our side where this is concerned, nor is the media hacks or the ascribing punditry.

And as we do work though this, let’s all remember one thing: Those men and women who are wearing the badges, even as falsely motivated militants target them for assassination, they just want to make it past the end of their shift, doing the jobs that others fear to do, to achieve their goal of going home.

My condolences to the families, friends and brothers and sisters of the badge who have been touched by this senseless and unnecessary event.

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining internal and external threats facing our country. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.

05/10/15

Cities On Fire – Dallas/Garland

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Arlen Williams

How very appropriate that on May Day, May 1st (Commie Day), protests were staged in Dallas, Texas against immigration and police brutality. Two groups joined forces for the protests: Mothers Against Police Brutality and the Texas Organizing Project. Their common stated goal was an end to law enforcement terrorizing their communities. Translation… the federalization of our police forces. The protests in Dallas were only violent in message, not deed, but they are setting the country on fire Constitutionally and figuratively. This is not grassroots – it’s staged. Things are never ever what they seem anymore.

Let’s have a look at exactly who was behind the protests in Dallas on May Day…

We’ll start with Moms Against Police Brutality. I’m sure all of you have heard of the various Mom’s groups out there: Moms Against Drunk Driving, Moms Against Guns, Moms Against Knives and now Moms Against Police Brutality. There are a number of others as well out there. I suspect they all have similar roots.

The mission of Mothers Against Police Brutality is to:

  • Unite and support Mothers and families nationwide whose children’s lives were stolen and have suffered injustice at the hands of local police.
  • End the killing of unarmed and mentally ill persons by law enforcement personnel.
  • Change police deadly force policies, practices and training.
  • Hold police accountable through independent investigations of misconduct, brutality and homicide by police officers.
  • Help restore trust between police and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect.

In the end – what their mission is boils down to the nationalization of our police forces. Plain and simple. Brought to you by Barack Obama and his wing man, Al Sharpton.

Their partners are some very familiar organizations. Along with numerous chapters of Students Against Police Brutality, their national partners include:

And what do a number of these groups have in common? The Communist Party USA and United for Peace and Justice: UFPJ is a coalition of more than 1400 local and national groups throughout the United States who have joined together to protest the immoral and disastrous Iraq War and oppose our government’s policy of permanent warfare and empire-building. They are a partner organization of the Institute for Policy Studies, which in essence is George Soros. The National Coordinator is Leslie Cagan. Several Marxist organizations are involved in the UFPJ leadership, but the most influential has been the Communist Party USA, through their members and Steering Committee such as National Coordinator Judith LeBlanc, Steering Committee members such as Jacqueline Cabasso, Libero Della Piana and Siri Margerin and affiliate leaders including Rosalio Munoz, Alfred Marder and Erica Smiley.

Mothers Against Police Brutality also allies with Cornel West. They gave a special thank you to the Nation of Islam as well for providing security.


Protesting Police Brutality (Shutterstock)

Texas Organizing Project is the new alias for ACORN. ACORN is the Progressive zombie organization exposed by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles that just won’t die. They just keep being resurrected under different names.

TOP received $20,000 from the Tides Foundation – yep, George Soros again. They also got a grant from the Open Society Institute. They claim to seek social and economic equality in Texas – how very Marxist and un-Texan.


Nice flag you’ve got there…


Protesters rally against police brutality in a demonstration outside the
Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas. (Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer)

Signs with sayings such as “black lives matter” and “unarmed but still a possible victim,” were paraded and displayed. “Dallas is Baltimore. Dallas is Ferguson,” said John Fullinwider, with Mothers Against Police Brutality. Backing the Blue rallied on behalf of the police.

The marches ended in Dallas after about five hours with no arrests reported. About 500 attended – not a big number, but in a conservative state such as Texas it shows the Progressives are busy little Marxists who are at war, intending to turn a red state into a blue state with whatever it takes… chaos, protests or riots. These things are on their hit parade and are coming. Their chants of “This is what democracy looks like!” mingled with “Down, down deportation; up, up immigration!” and “Si, si, puede!” will reverberate across the nation this summer. I suggest ear plugs and antacid.


Open Carry supporters peacefully stand watch over protesters. Photo Courtesy Annie Kobus
Notice the Nation of Islam standing right there.


Pamela Geller – Atlas Shrugs

In Garland, Texas at the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest,” which this site promoted, two armed gunmen with semiautomatic weapons opened up on a security guard wounding him in the ankle. He will be fine thank God. They supposedly had explosives. The event was sold out with about 300 attendees and ran late – which probably saved their lives. As this was going down outside, they sang God Bless America inside… I couldn’t be prouder of everyone there. Most of them were also armed. And I am overjoyed the two ISIS thugs are dead.

From CBS here is the timeline:

7:45 pm CT: Officers tell Gabriel Roxas that two suspects were shot dead. Pamela Geller spoke to CBS 11 from lockdown via phone at 7:45 pm CT. In addition to echoing our ground team, she told a news producer, “I heard officers talking of possible explosions in backpacks and the car.” Sources told CBS 11 there was a report of a ‘grenade’ at an area Walmart, but the Garland PD said none was found.

8:11 pm CT: Joe Harn, spokesman for the Garland Police Department, tells CBS 11 two men pulled up in vehicle on the roadway in front of the center and began firing at a Garland ISD security guard. Garland Police returned fire and killed both suspects.

8:11 pm CT: Suspects’ vehicle being checked for explosives. It is scheduled to be detonated.

8:20 pm CT: Authorities tell CBS 11 that SWAT will escort 48 people at a time out of arena soon, but many are parked in a now secured area and cannot access cars.

8:30 pm CT: Garland ISD spokesman Chris Moore says one of their security guards was shot. His name is Bruce Joiner. He has been with the district for 8 years. He has non-life threatening injuries after being shot once in the leg. He’s in stable condition at a local hospital.

9:00 pm CT: Security guard Bruce Joiner released from hospital.

9:12 pm CT: No press conference until authorities have cleared the suspects’ vehicle.

9:29 pm CT: Muslim Response to Dallas Shooting. Harris Zafar, Vice President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association told CBS 11 via email: “People need to hear a strong Muslim voice condemning this insanity.”

9:29 pm CT: Suspects’ bodies still at the scene.

10:16 pm CT: Joe Harn of the Garland Police Department told CBS 11, “We were prepared for it.”

10:33 pm CT: Harn holds a press conference. When asked about the suspects, he said, “They drove out, got out, and opened fire on the security officer.” When asked about their identities, no information was disclosed.

10:34 pm CT: There were reports of a third suspect, but Harn said, “I don’t have any idea about that.”

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack – the contest was held at the same location and in the same room as a pro-Shariah law event was held just recently. When the killers opened fire and one reached for his backpack, one police officer didn’t hesitate, he took them out. That’s exactly what should have happened. That officer and others there did their jobs and I’m proud of them for it.

The SITE Intelligence Group reported that an ISIS fighter claimed on Twitter that the shooting was carried out by two pro-ISIS individuals. In a series of tweets and links, a Jihadist named as Abu Hussain AlBritani, which SITE said was British ISIS fighter Junaid Hussain, claimed that ‘2 of our brothers just opened fire’ at the Prophet Muhammad exhibition in Texas. ‘They Thought They Was Safe In Texas From The Soldiers of The Islamic State,’ added the tweet. And ISIS thought they could do whatever they wanted – not in Texas evidently, you asshats. Both of the dead terrorists were from Phoenix, Arizona. It is also being reported that the FBI knew of their planned attack for several hours at least beforehand and did nothing about it. FBI director James Comey revealed that the agency had information that Elton Simpson was interested in heading to Garland, Texas, before he and his companion, Nadir Soofi, opened fire at the Mohammed cartoon contest. Comey told reporters that the FBI had alerted the police in Garland, Texas, shortly before the event. Officers on the ground never saw the warnings, however, and no attempt was made to warn the organizers or their security team of the threat.


The suspects’ bodies are seen next to their vehicle as it is searched for explosives
at the event. Two men got out the vehicle and opened fire, wounding a security guard in the leg,
before they were shot dead by police.


ISIS supporters claimed on Twitter that one of the gunmen was a man calling
himself Shariah Is Light.

Their getaway vehicle also looked like there was damage from an explosion to it, probably form SWAT preemptively blowing it up just for good measure.

Since the attack, ISIS has taken credit and both men were confirmed Islamists. As Pamela Geller put it on Fox News, this is a war on free speech. Pure and simple. Islam is trying to strip us of our Constitutional rights and we will not be silenced.

There had been no credible threats before the event and the shootout lasted seconds with about 20 shots being fired. Although there were no threats, Pamela and Robert have traveled with security for over 10 years and they had paid for heavy security for the event. This is a way of life for Geert Wilders. What a sad statement that is.

Any innocent blood spilled is all over Obama’s hands on this… he opened the borders and let them in. Hell, he’s flown and bused them in from all over the world. He’s brought ISIS here and now the fight is at hand.


Artist Bosh Fawstin (left) is presented with a check for 12,500 by Dutch politician Geert Wilders (center)
and Pamela Geller (right) during a ceremony at the Curtis Culwell Center just before the shootings occurred.

Here is a captured timeline from one of our readers on Twitter – this account has now been suspended:

And know that every time you insult the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w we will respond harshly, from paris to texas u are not safe at all.
3 retweets 5 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 14m 14 minutes ago
They showed their love for the prophet Muhamamd s.a.w by sacrificing their lives for his honor – ‪#‎GarlandShooting‬
7 retweets 5 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 15m 15 minutes ago
The brothers in texas may have had no experience in shooting but they was quick to defend the honor of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w !
6 retweets 5 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 47m 47 minutes ago
“And do not say about those who are killed in the way of Allah , “They are dead.” Rather, they are alive, but you perceive it not”
8 retweets 5 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 49m 49 minutes ago
The 2 Brothers attained shahdah in texas! O Kuffar know that death is better than living humiliated! Allahu Akbar !!! #garlandshooting
17 retweets 10 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 53m 53 minutes ago
If there is no check on the freedom of your speech, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions #GarlandShooting ‪#‎TexasAttack‬
8 retweets 8 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 58m 58 minutes ago
They Thought They Was Safe In Texas From The Soldiers of The Islamic State – #garlandshooting #TexasAttack
18 retweets 9 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 1h 1 hour ago
Kill Those That Insult The Prophet – #GarlandShooting
16 retweets 8 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 1h 1 hour ago
Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) art exhibition in texas! #TexasAttack
44 retweets 16 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 1h 1 hour ago
@atawaakul May Allah swt reward you and give you Jannah !
#TexasAttack
View conversation
0 retweets 3 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani retweeted
Shariah is Light @atawaakul · 2h 2 hours ago
The bro with me and myself have given bay’ah to Amirul Mu’mineen. May Allah accept us as mujahideen.
Make dua
#texasattack
31 retweets 21 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 4h 4 hours ago
The knives have been sharpened, soon we will come to your streets with death and slaughter! ‪#‎QaribanQariba‬
12 retweets 7 favorites
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 4h 4 hours ago
“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it” -61:8
3 retweets 3 favorites
View translation
AbuHussainAlBritani @_AbuHu55ain · 4h 4 hours ago
Im back, follow & shoutout inshAllah – JazakAllah khair.

The Daily Mail couldn’t even bring themselves to show Mohammad in their report. After the Charlie Hebdo murders, this should be a stark reminder to Americans we are not immune from such atrocities. The war is now here and touching each of us personally. Matthew Vadum at FrontPage Mag says it best, “The anti-cartoon Jihad has come to America.”

From CNN:

“We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner.”

And the AFP:

“Two of the soldiers of the caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas, and this exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammad … We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of ISIS do terrible things.”

After being attacked by both sides of the aisle for holding a contest to draw Mohammad, a contest that basically showcased free speech, Pamela put it bluntly, “Everyone seems so eager to surrender. I never will.” And neither will I. Those who stand against Pamela Geller and anyone taking a stand for free speech against Shariah Law and the Islamists, I’ll ask you what Bill Whittle has asked… which are you… a fascist, a coward or a moron? Or are you all three? #IStandWithPamelaGeller

Senator Ted Cruz:

“We saw the ugly face of radical Islam in Garland, Texas, recently,” Cruz said of a “Draw Muhammad” event there, “Thankfully, one police officer helped those terrorists meet their virgins.”


‘Saturday Night Live’: Draw the Prophet Muhammad

05/4/15

ISIS Sympathizers in U.S. Activated to Attack

By: Denise Simon
FoundersCode.com

Geller threatMake Dua in Texas, 2 Muslim convert roommates armed with AK-47’s originating from Phoenix, Arizona. This ‘winning the hearts of minds of our known enemies is NOT a working or effective strategy.

No bombs were found, however Garland Police had to detonate some luggage found in their vehicle. But the threats continue in social media against Pam Geller.

The dead shooter, Elton Simpson:

The jihadis were well known to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also continues to hold hearings on the circle of sympathizers in America and the threats they pose to our national security.

Garland, Texas ~ Police officers shot and killed the man, identified as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, and his companion Sunday evening, outside the Curtis Culwell Center, at an event organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York-based group that also uses the name Stop Islamization of America. The gunfire, which began shortly before 7 p.m., left a security guard wounded.

In 2010, federal prosecutors in Arizona charged Mr. Simpson with plotting to travel to Somalia “for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,” and then lying to a federal agent about his plans. A judge found him guilty of lying to the agent, but said the government had not proved that his plan involved terrorism, and sentenced him to three years’ probation.

The police and F.B.I. agents in Phoenix searched an apartment believed to be connected to Mr. Simpson, with much of the Autumn Ridge apartment complex cordoned off through the night. At the same time, the F.B.I. office in Dallas confirmed that it was providing investigators and a bomb technician to aid the police in Garland, a city just outside Dallas.

Officials did not give a motive for the attack Sunday evening, but drawings of Muhammad, considered offensive by many Muslims, have drawn violent responses in the past. Shortly before the shooting, messages were posted on Twitter with the hashtag #texasattack, including one saying, “May Allah accept us as mujahideen.”

The hosts of the event include Robert Spencer and Pam Geller declared this attack a ‘war on free speech’ in America where the media has become Sharia compliant at the demands of Islam where Muslims declare only they have the ability to declare what is free speech and what is not.

The event in Garland had more than 200 attendees including Tom Trento of United West, Geert Wilders and Congressman Louis Gohmert (R-TX) who actually invited Wilders to the United States.

Geert Wilders had this message after the event:

Dear friends,

Thank you all for being here. It’s great to be in Texas, the Lone Star State. The one star in the Texan flag represents all the free Western world needs today: defiance, pride and independence.

It is no coincidence that we are in Garland, Texas, tonight. It is here that, three months ago, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Islamic activists convened to demand that free speech be curtailed. They want to prohibit cartoons, books and films which they find insulting.

Our answer is clear:

Don’t mess with Texas!
Don’t mess with the free West!
Don’t mess with our freedom of speech!

Friends, allow me to thank Pamela Geller for organizing this exhibition.

Pamela is an extraordinary woman. I only have a few heroes, but Pamela certainly is one of them. Let us give her a big applause!

My friends, you are all winners. Everybody present here tonight deserves respect, just for being here.

The cartoonists, the participants in this Muhammad contest all did fantastic work. All of you are not only talented but also very brave. For Islam has put a death sentence on depicting Muhammad. But this has not frightened you. And even if it did, it has not stopped you. Because you believe in freedom of speech.

I applaud you for that.

However, there can be only one winner of the contest. And that is, as you already know, Bosch Fawstin. Bosch knows what he is talking and cartooning about, being a former – or in his own words recovered – Muslim.

I have known the fantastic work of Bosch – who also created the anti-jihad superhero Pigman – for many years already and I want to congratulate him for his bravery and excellent work and winning the contest today.

Your statement, my statement, the statement of every single person present in this room here tonight is clear: We will never allow barbarism, we will never allow Islam to rob us of our freedom of speech! Never!

I know from my own experience how dangerous it is to stand for this freedom. I know how dangerous it is to speak the truth about Islam.

I am on death lists of Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban and terrorists from ISIS because I tell people the truth about Islam. Islam has declared war on us, on our Judeo-Christian civilization. Islam wants to rob us of the freedoms and liberties. Islam and freedom are totally incompatible.

I am a politician, but cartoonists, like my good friends the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, are also on the death list. Both Kurt and Lars have already been the victims of murder attempts.

Another man on this list was the cartoonist Charb, editor of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. As we all know, he and 9 of his colleagues were murdered last January in Paris by followers of the religion of hate. According to Islamic Sharia law, they were all guilty of the same crime.

The crime of depicting Muhammad, the crime of defaming the so-called Prophet of Islam.

A crime punishable by death by the religion of death.

In order to show them that we will not have Islam dictate us the law, we are here with an exhibition of Muhammad cartoons.

We are here in defiance of Islam.

We are here to defend our rights and stand for freedom of speech.

That is our duty.

As Ronald Reagan, your greatest president ever, said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

I am happy to say that nobody died while watching these cartoons.

This proves that, unlike jihadis, cartoons do not kill people.

Cartoons do not kill jihadis, but jihadis kill cartoonists.

That is a huge difference which we should never forget.

Huntington was wrong. It is not a clash of civilizations, but a clash between civilization and barbarism.

Our Judeo-Christian culture is far superior to the Islamic one.

I can give you a million reasons. But here is an important one.

We have got humor and they don’t.

There is no humor in Islam.

In 1979, ayatollah Khomeini devoted an entire radio broadcast to this topic: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun,” the ayatollah said. “There are no jokes in Islam,” he added. “There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”
For once, the ayatollah was right.

Islam does not allow free speech, because free speech shows how evil and wrong Islam is.

And Islam does not allow humor, because humor shows how foolish and ridiculous it is.

Friends,

You are extremely fortunate to live in America. Because you have a first amendment.

In Europe, it is not just the jihadis who go after you. The authorities do so, too.

In the Netherlands, I have been dragged to court on hate speech charges for speaking the truth about Islam. I was acquitted, but now the authorities are prosecuting me again.

We are harassed, but sympathizers of the Islamic State are left in peace. Last Summer, they took to the streets in The Hague. They carried swastikas and ISIS flags. They shouted “Death to the Jews.” And you know what? The authorities did nothing. We have weak leaders. Appeasers are ruling The Netherlands, Europe and the USA. We have to turn the tide and we will. New leadership is what we need to defend our freedom of speech and resist the ongoing Islamization of the West.

Today, many of our Western leaders want us to shut up.

When we tell the truth about Islam, they call it Islamophobia.

When cartoonists make drawings of Muhammad, they are accused of provoking people.

A few years ago, in my country, the Netherlands, the police even raided the house of a cartoonist.

In his address to the United Nations in 2012, President Obama said: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

But we say: The future must not belong to Islam!

Do you hear, Mr Obama? We say: No to Islam!!

Unlike President Obama and his European colleagues, we are not willing to sign away our freedom and independence.

The day we give away humor and freedom of speech is the day that we cease to exist as a free and independent people.
And that day will never come.

That is what this exhibition is all about!

From here we send a message to President Obama and all his colleagues: We will never submit!

We are not intimidated by Islam.

We will not be picking up swords and axes and breaking into people’s homes. But we will not remain silent either.

Moderation in the face of evil is evil. This is not what our age needs. We must uncap our pens; we must speak words of truth. We are facing a determined enemy who is striving through all means to destroy the West and snuff out our traditions of free thought, free speech, and our Judeo-Christian values. Make no mistake: if we fail, we will be enslaved. So the only option is to defend our freedom with all the energy we have. It’s time to be brave. It’s time to do our duty.

Instead of giving in to fear and adopt the Islamic taboo on depicting Muhammad, I propose that we draw another conclusion:

Lift the cause of the fear!

Let us de-islamize our societies!

No more Islam, no more mosques, no more Islamic schools. It is time for our own culture and heritage.

Let us liberate ourselves from tyranny.

That is another good reason why we are having this exhibition here today.

Depicting Muhammad is an act of liberation!

Let us hold similar exhibitions all over the United States and all over the free world. From Canada to Australia to Europe.
We need Pamela Geller everywhere in the world.

I invite you to come to the Netherlands with this exhibition. I will help you exhibit these cartoons in the Dutch parliament building.

We will never allow Islam to restrict freedom!

And we will never bow in the direction of Mecca!

I am not saying that there are no moderate Muslims. Fortunately, there are Muslims who do not live according to the Islamic commands. But there is no moderate Islam!

Not all Muslims are terrorists. But most terrorists today are Muslims.

That is why we say: The less Islam, the better!

The Islamic creed obliges one and a half billion people around the world to take Muhammad as their example.
He led a gang of robbers, who looted, raped and killed hundreds of people.

Historic sources describe orgies of inhumanity. An example is the genocide of the Jews of Medina in 627. One of the head choppers was Muhammad himself. Confronted with the lunacy of Islamic terrorists today, it is not hard to find out whom they get their inspiration from.

It is from Muhammad who – we have to tell the truth – was a warlord, a murderer and a pedophile

There is no turning back once one has become a Muslim. For even though article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to “change his religion or belief,” in Islam there is only a death penalty for leaving the faith.

So, let us expose Muhammad. Let us show the world what Islam truly is.

And let us support Muslims, like Bosch, who wish to leave Islam and liberate themselves from fear.

Apostates are heroes and more than ever they deserve the support of freedom loving people all over the world.

Muhammad fought and terrorized people with the sword.

We fight Muhammad and his followers with the pen.

And the pen will prove mightier than the sword.

Muhammad’s followers fight us with bloodbaths, but today here in Garland we fight them with humor.

Because bloodbaths enslave, while humor liberates.

Let me end by quoting Sam Houston, the founding father of this great state of Texas:

“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.”

May his words inspire us all today never to submit to Islamic barbarism.

Thank you very much.

02/3/15

The Tea Party: Then and Now

By: Michael Johns

The largest and most impactful political movement, at least since the civil rights movement and perhaps in all of American history, originated in the minds and efforts of less than a dozen American citizens.

It was late February 2009, just weeks after the inauguration of Barack Obama, and there was every reason for conservatives to fear the worst: That we had elected a polarizing, far left and ultimately ineffectual president who would prove a threat to constitutional law, our economy and America’s global standing in the world.  Most concerning was that he would gradually or even quickly erode our nation’s two centuries of respect for individual rights and liberties upon which America was founded, “fundamentally transforming” (as he promised) our nation in destructive ways.

On the morning of February 19, 2009, as was often the case, I had the financial media outlet CNBC playing on a distant television in my suburban Philadelphia home.  This particular cold February morning, Rick Santelli, a Chicago-based CNBC reporter, was doing his usual stand-up reporting from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (COMEX).  Santelli began reporting on Washington’s federal subsidies of housing under Obama when mid way through his report his sense of outrage began to escalate passionately.

Santelli accused the Obama administration of “promoting bad behavior” in subsidizing mortgages then at default risk with a $75 billion housing program, known as the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan. He then turned and, while still live on CNBC, stated assertively to COMEX floor traders: “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party!” Santelli’s suggestion of a Tea Party response to the federal government’s overreach was greeted with supportive applause and whistles of approval from COMEX traders. Santelli then said: “What we are doing in this country is making our founders roll over in their graves.”

I found Santelli’s Chicago comments accurate, inspirational and even bold for a mainstream reporter in a media world that really never challenged Obama on much of anything during or since the 2008 campaign. What I did not realize was that his remarks were viewed similarly by several other conservative-leaning Americans, who would go on to inspire a national political movement that would shake the nation.

Just a few days following Santelli’s rant, 12 or so conservative activists, including me, were invited to participate in a strategic organizing Tea Party conference call moderated by Nashville-based, Stanford educated conservative Michael Patrick Leahy.  It was Leahy who earlier launched the now famous #tcot (Top Conservatives on Twitter) hashtag, where it remains today one of Twitter’s most commonly used hashtags and a key methodology for conservative communication.

Most on the call, unlike me, were new to political engagement.  They had largely never worked in government, public policy or politics. Aside from Leahy and me, the others had never managed an organization either.  They had largely never written or spoken on political or public policy themes, even though all of us would soon be called upon to articulate our Tea Party message nationally in the weeks to come.  Most had never even worked on a political campaign.  But the passion on that call was infectious.  The 12 or so of us left it with a feeling that a potentially influential national political movement was emerging—and quickly.

Several follow-up calls were scheduled, and they led us to devise a now well-known plan for Tea Party protests across the nation on Tax Day, April 15, 2009.  The aggressive six-week timeline, like much that the Tea Party movement has undertaken since its creation, was organized hastily, with a sense of urgency, and not without its errors. But April 15, 2009, is now a fairly notable day in American history in the sense that it was the physical manifestation of a national political movement, comprising tens of millions of Americans and quite possibly the largest in American history, that would go on to impact significantly the nation’s political debate.

The day of April 15, 2009, was a busy one. For my part, in the afternoon, on Boston Square in downtown Boston, just blocks from the original Sam Adams-led Tea Party on December 16, 1773, I spoke to a large and passionate crowd furious with Obama and the country’s direction.  I then left Boston to speak that evening at one of the nation’s largest tea parties of the day, held in lower Manhattan, not far from the memorialized 9/11 attack location. Three days later, on the grounds of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I spoke for a third time in just three days to a very large and vibrant Tea Party rally organized by the Independence Hall Tea Party Association, of which I was then an officer.

The years 2009 and 2010 were full of flurry and a sense of urgency for the national Tea Party movement, an urgency that has continued to this day.  In 2010, in Quincy, Illinois, where Lincoln held his sixth debate with U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas on October 13, 1858, I joined Leahy and the late media personality Andrew Breitbart in addressing a large Tea Party crowd on the precise location where Lincoln pointedly articulated his anti-slavery message: “We (the Republican Party) also oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself,” Lincoln said that day in Quincy.

By this time, the message of our movement was being refined and polished, comprised mostly of three universal themes that were and continue to be broadly popular with the American people: First, the federal government has grown too big and its taxes vastly too excessive.  Second, the sovereignty of the United States—in controlling its borders, in developing its national security and foreign policies — must be defended at all costs.  And third, that the U.S. Constitution was a document containing absolute truths to which government needed to adhere if it was to avoid lawlessness and chaos.

As I was in Boston and New York City, Leahy and others organized one of the day’s largest and most successful events in Nashville, drawing thousands.  In downtown Chicago, just a couple blocks from where the Santelli rant heard round the world took place, another Tea Party founder organized a large and hugely successful Tea Party rally.  His name was Eric Odom.

Quickly, the passionate and activism of this small cadre spread to thousands, then tens of thousands, and ultimately to millions of Americans who identified themselves as being supportive of the Tea Party movement. On November 2, 2010, a highly motivated Tea Party movement rocked the nation, sending 65 new Republican House members to Washington and thus forcing then Speaker Nancy Pelosi to surrender her gavel to new Republican John Boehner. Four years later, on November 4, 2014, the Tea Party movement again proved a huge difference maker, further increasing Republican presence in the U.S. House and increasing its U.S. Senate seats by nine, including pulling out wins in hugely contentious races in many states, including Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Tea Party Caucus, chaired by former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, had been developed with the movement’s input to coordinate the Tea Party agenda in Congress.  And the national strategy discussions continued. In Chicago, for instance, Odom and I spent three long days in detailed discussion on the movement’s strategy, messaging and allocation of limited resources.

In the months and years since, along with other Tea Party founders from the February 2009 conference call, we continued tireless efforts of what by then had become a vast, influential, though sometimes chaotically organized movement of political consequence. All the Tea Party movement founders from Leahy’s first conference call are impressive in their own ways, and have their own personal stories about what sparked their leadership in this now historical movement.

In the years that followed, along with other national Tea Party leaders, Leahy, Odom and I crisscrossed the nation articulating the Tea Party message and helped to organize the movement politically in order to prevail in elections.

In Dallas, Leahy organized a national Tea Party leadership meeting that included many of the founders from the original February 2009 call participated.  “Let’s begin this meeting with a prayer to God for His guidance of this movement,” I suggested privately to Leahy, who agreed. We began the meeting exactly that way.  Later, also in Dallas, we organized a two-day training course for regional and other Tea Party leaders on political and public policy activism.

One of those leaders was Chicago-based Eric Odom.  In fall 2010, from Las Vegas, we poured ourselves into the campaign of Nevada State Senator Sharron Angle in hopes of replacing the Obama administration’s strongest U.S. Senate ally, Harry Reid.  As the movement’s prominence (and the associated strategic questions facing it) evolved, Odom and I spent several days in Chicago asking and discussing those questions and developing our best answers.  And there was the day in Philadelphia where I invited Odom to join me in addressing an important pre-election Tea Party rally held on the iconic grounds of Independence Hall in front of the very building where 56 founders of our nation pledged with a “firm reliance of the protection of divine providence,” their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to remove imperial British forces and rule and establish a self-governed nation rooted in liberty and the rule of law.

The Tea Party movement’s efforts, as even its detractors would concede, have since proven hugely consequential, ensuring that Obama, at least since 2011, was not given full reign of the legislative and executive branches of government.  A Tea Party-influenced Republican House and Senate, along with our extensive grassroots efforts, have held liberal Obama’s agenda at bay, despite the Tea Party’s ultimate inability to defeat Obamacare.

Since that first February 2009 conference call, the founding and ongoing development of the historic Tea Party movement is one of many intriguing personal stories, and a singular collective story.  Along the way, we have done many things well (removing Pelosi and then Reid as Speaker and Majority Leader, respectively).  We have strengthened the Republican Party as a party that stands more than before for conservative principles expressed (but too often ignored) in the GOP platform.  We also quickly obliterated the 2008 progressive political culture that maintained that Obama was a man who singularly held the answers for the nation.  Time has proven those ideas were not at all innovative and were actually just a rewording of those from the liberal playbook of more government and more taxes.  In all these ways, since those February 2009 planning calls, the national Tea Party movement has exceeded the accomplishments of the effective and well-constructed 2008 Obama for America campaign that ultimately propelled Obama to the presidency.

All this history is important because it reaffirms the veracity of Margaret Mead’s famous statement: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It’s worth asking: If those first organizing calls had not been launched, would Republicans today control the U.S. Senate and House? If no, that means that Obama’s entire far-left political agenda would have been rubber stamped by an equally liberal Congressional leadership.  Has the Tea Party movement saved the nation?  I believe it likely has.

Yet, to be truthful about the inner workings of the Tea Party movement, we have done many things well, but failed in others.  In 2015, the Tea Party and patriot movement’s top priority must be communicating and impacting public opinion and explaining why and how Tea Party principles can make America great again: creating jobs and economic prosperity, restoring rigid adherence to the U.S. Constitution, and restoring a strong America that can defeat serious national security threats.

With a reliance on divine providence again, let’s roll back this utterly destructive, unconstitutional government and welcome in a century or more of strong liberty leadership.  Next step: We must explain our Tea Party vision and solutions for America.

02/1/15

Will New AG Support Civil Forfeiture Reform?

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

The  Wednesday hearings on the confirmation of a new Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, lasted hours because members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were often called away to vote. In the wake of the scandals surrounding the manner in which Eric Holder’s Department of Justice has functioned, the hearing, led now by Republicans, could have been harsh, but it was not. The Wall Street Journal characterized the mood in the hearing room as “cordial.” Watching it on CSPAN, I can confirm that.

In early November the Wall Street Journal, in an opinion titled “The Next Attorney General: One area to question Loretta Lynch is civil asset forfeiture”, it noted that “As a prosecutor Ms. Lynch had also been aggressive in pursuing civil asset forfeiture, which has become a form of politicking for profit.”

“She recently announced that her office had collected more than $904 million in criminal and civil actions in fiscal 2013, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Liberals and conservatives have begun to question forfeiture as an abuse of due process that can punish the innocent.”

That caught my eye because the last thing America needs is an Attorney General who wants to use this abuse of the right to be judged innocent until proven guilty. Civil forfeiture puts no limits on the seizure of anyone’s private property and financial holdings. It is a law that permits this to occur even if based on little more than conjecture. It struck me then and now as a bizarre and distinctly un-American law.

Writing in the Huffington Post in late 2014, Bob Barr, a former Congressman and the principal in Liberty Strategies, told of the passage of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) in 2000 “as a milestone in the difficult—almost impossible—task of protecting individual rights against constant incursions by law-and-order officials.” The problem is that civil forfeiture was and is being used to seize millions.

“The staggering dollar amounts reflected in these statistics, however,” wrote Barr, “does not pinpoint the real problem of how law enforcement agencies at all levels of government employ the power of asset forfeiture as a means of harming, and in many instances, destroying the livelihood of individuals and small businesses.”

“In pursuing civil assets, the government need never charge the individuals with violations of criminal laws; therefore never having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of having committed any crimes.”

As noted above, as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Ms. Lynch’s office had raked in millions from civil forfeiture. Forbes magazine reports that she has used it in more than 120 cases and, prior to the hearing to confirm her as the next Attorney General US News & World Report noted on January 26 that Ms. Lynch’s office had quietly dropped a $450,000 civil forfeiture case a week before the hearings. She clearly did not want to answer questions on this or any other comparable case.

Just one example tells you why there is legitimate concern regarding this issue and it appeared in a January 3rd edition of Townhall.com. I recommend you read the account written by Amy Herrig, the vice president of Gas Pipe, Inc, a Texas company that an editor’s note reported as “faced with extinction of a civil asset forfeiture to the federal government of more than $16 million. Neither Herrig nor her father, Jerry Shults, have been charged with any criminal offense.”

Jerry Shults is a classic example of an American entrepreneur. After having served in the Air Force and serving in Vietnam where he earned a Bronze Star, Shults moved to Dallas where he began selling novelty items at pop festivals throughout Texas. Since the first store that he opened had gas pipes exposed in the ceiling, he dubbed it Gas Pipe, Inc. Suffice to say his hard work paid off for him. By the late 1990s, he had seven stores, a distribution company, a five-star lodge in Alaska, and was an American success story. By 2014 the company had grown to fourteen stores and other notable properties.

By then he had been in business for nearly 45 years and employed nearly two hundred people. And then someone in the northern district of Texas, Dallas division, initiated a civil forfeiture seizure against him. I was so appalled by his daughter’s description of events I secured a copy of the September 15 complaint that was filed. I am no attorney, but it looked to me as spurious as one could have imagined, except for the details of Gas Pipe’s assets. On 88 single-spaced pages, those were spelled out meticulously and all were subject to seizure despite the fact that not a single instance of criminality had been proven in a court of law. Imagine having 45 years of success erased by one’s own government in this fashion. It is appalling.

Assuming Ms. Lynch will be approved for confirmation as our next Attorney General, civil forfeiture is the largely hidden or unknown issue that could spell disaster for countless American businesses, large and small, in the remaining two years of the Obama administration. She has a record of pursuing it. The upside of this is that the current AG, Eric Holder, in early January announced that the DOJ would no longer acquire assets seized as part of a state law violation.

On the same day of Ms. Lynch’s hearing, January 28, writing in The Hill’s Congress Blog, former Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) was joined by Bruce Mehlman, a former Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration, to raise a note of warning. “The topic of civil asset forfeiture should be an important part of the discussion with Lynch. As U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Lynch was the top official in a hotbed of civil asset forfeiture—helping to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars under the program in recent years.”

Ms. Lynch was not asked about civil forfeiture by either the Republican or Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was a lost opportunity and, if the new Attorney General applies her enthusiasm for it to the entire nation, it will be yet another Obama administration nightmare.

© Alan Caruba, 2015